Vermont Photos

[JBG]

i know of virtually no researcher who keeps bees without treatments, or has even seen bees kept without treatments.
deknow

How about the nation of Brazil? Why don't you come to my apiary and we will allow you to not only see bees kept without treatment but we will also standby while you test your theory of non-aggressive africanized stock.

[adamf]

yes adam, but "meriting" a grant is an artificial
metric....it is the ability to convince a committee to fund your research.
i think self funded research is much more likely to have actual merit, to
be useful...and to be profitable.

Perhaps, but are you then also stating that only self-funded research is
valid? This sounds like a syllogism.

Self-funded research is R&D. Whether proprietary or not.
There's nothing wrong with subsidizing R&D. Russian Queens and VSH Queens
now exist because of cooperative efforts between the government and
private enterprises. I'm sure that you'd agree that both hold merit.

yes, there is lots of waste, but the problem here is (imho) more than mere
waste. i think it's harmful for the govt to fund people's businesses.
imagine if you've just spent $30k building a breeding program out of your
pocket, hoping to pay off the investment and then make a profit. now, a
neighbor gets a $30k grant to do the same thing. there is less incentive to
be successful enough to pay off the investment quickly with a grant.

None of the SARE grants are anything like this--they're either for on-farm
research or for extension or extension/marketing. Sure some are less useful than others, but an "on-farm research" grant encourages a farmer to be curious and to risk something. Small farmers being able to take risks without having to be completely financially responsible encourages growth in Agriculture at this level, I think.

adam, i'd be curious to know which ones you think have been useful, and if
the end result was really pretty well known before the grant was
issued.

Well, there's been a bunch of Dr. Spivak's research funded by SARE. Her lab's papers are usually pretty succinct.
There was some interesting on-farm research for mite tolerance awhile back too. Also some very interesting non-Apicultural research funded by SARE as well.
Anyone can search the database. Check it out.

Perhaps more people need to apply for SARE grants thus making them more competitive?

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com

[deknow]

Perhaps, but are you then also stating that only self-funded research is
valid? This sounds like a syllogism.

i don't know adam. i use a lot of techniques from a lot of sources in my apiary. not one of them comes from publicly funded research. if we want to make a case that such research (sare grants specifically) are valuable, we need some examples of value created by them. is 24 beekeepers learning about nucs for $10k the best we can hope for? working through a bee club, this same thing can be acomplised for free.

I'm sure that you'd agree that both hold merit.

perhaps merit, but that doesn't mean the govt should have funded them. neither seem to have eliminated the need for treatments by most consumers. clearly, not treating is not impossible. neither of these lines (russian or "vsh") accomplishes this. funding breeding programs for locally adapted stock would do much more good, imho.

None of the SARE grants are anything like this--they're either for on-farm
research or for extension or extension/marketing. Sure some are less useful than others, but an "on-farm research" grant encourages a farmer to be curious and to risk something. Small farmers being able to take risks without having to be completely financially responsible encourages growth in Agriculture at this level, I think.

again, is there a single beekeeping related sare grant that you can cite as having been useful? what growth has been accomplished?
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/smallf...stant_bees.pdf
shows a $5k sare grant to buy namebrand queens, breed them, and learn to sell them. this is exactly the kind of grant i'm describing.

Well, there's been a bunch of Dr. Spivak's research funded by SARE. Her lab's papers are usually pretty succinct.
There was some interesting on-farm research for mite tolerance awhile back

that's a pretty vague summary of the useful beekeeping information obtained via sare grants. anything you use? anything of note?

Perhaps more people need to apply for SARE grants thus making them more competitive?

i think smart people's time is better spent doing something rather than writing grant proposals. but that's just my opinion.

[Countryboy]

Government funded research tends to yield inconclusive results. Inconclusive results need more studying, and more taxpayer dollars to fund that research. The moment the study is finished and yields a conclusion, the funding stops.

Necessity is the mother if invention/innovation. Rarely is curiousity. (and grants are used to fund studies for curiousity sake)

I enjoyed looking at the pics. Thank you.

[adamf]

i don't know adam. i use a lot of techniques from a
lot of sources in my apiary. not one of them comes from publicly funded
research. if we want to make a case that such research (sare grants
specifically) are valuable, we need some examples of value created by them.
is 24 beekeepers learning about nucs for $10k the best we can hope for?
working through a bee club, this same thing can be acomplised for
free.

I spent three hours last night inseminating queens here--made some nice
crosses. I used my stock, some of another breeder's stock and VSH stock. I
haven't treated in 11 seasons. I produce nice honey that I sell and feed to
my family. I also sell queens to others who have given me good feedback on
their performance.

I enjoy what I do and although at times I'm thwarted by the weather (as all
folks are who work in production agriculture) I feel that our efforts here
are helping other beekeepers also.

We've taught ourselves many of our techniques. We've also had the good
fortune to have had help from others, several from the USDA. Their knowledge and
experience contributed to our growth.

A portion of the stock I used last night has some link to the USDA bee breeding program.
I select or course, but some of the good qualities I can select for were
originally elucidated by the USDA.

When I publish my final report for my SARE grant, I'll cover what we
learned, what we can transfer to other beekeepers, and what happened. This
information will hopefully be useful to other beekeepers--thus meeting
one of the SARE grant's goals, and our goals. The purpose of our grant was to help other beekeepers.

The grant money barely covered what we did, financially. We had to come up
with the operating money before receiving any grant money. Certainly the
grant money was utilized, but the role it played in our operation was
minimal.

We would have done what we did for the grant experiment anyway, and we've
always shared what we do with others--the grant we received enabled us to
focus on the problem and facilitated our being able to meet and speak with
other beekeepers who are also continually conducting on-farm research with
alacrity, because they are good people with good ideas and values. Also
because they are curious and love what they do.

again, is there a single beekeeping related sare grant that you can cite as
having been useful? what growth has been accomplished?
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/smallf...stant_bees.pdf shows a $5k sare grant to buy namebrand queens, breed them, and learn to
sell them. this is exactly the kind of grant i'm describing.

I found some useful SARE information. Hopefully the work we've done will
be considered useful too.

i think smart people's time is better spent doing something rather than
writing grant proposals. but that's just my opinion.

It is! And you've stated it here very well. I find looking at an issue from all sides is an extremely adaptive method when solving problems. I understand your point, and see where you derive your conclusions, but having worked on a SARE grant AND having conducted on farm research all my beekeeping life, I think BOTH are good things.


Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com

[deknow]

adam, i like you, i think you are smart, and all reports are that you raise excellent queens.

i've looked at the abstract to your grant (perhaps a different grant...reporting 2008), and i'm puzzled.

your business is as a queen breeder. a successful breeder must evaluate stock.
your $4k+ grant was to evaluate mite resistant lines of queens?

i firmly believe what you posted...that you would have done this work with or without the grant (am i misreading?). i think you would share important information with others whether or not you had a grant.

so what good does the grant do? well, at the very least, it gives you a $4k headstart over someone doing something similar without a grant.

from my perspective, this is a grant to pay you to do what you (as a queen breeder) should be already doing. this is paying you to research the product you are selling. i don't see the value in funding something like this, mostly, because i don't think for a minute that you wouldn't do all of this even without the funding.

what does $4k pay for? breeder queens? cell builders? finishers? mating nucs? are you not taking speaking fees you otherwise would? where is the "outreach website"? what are you going to share?

deknow

[beemandan]

Grants allow payment for planned, organized and collected data to be placed in the public domain. Do we have a moral obligation to make that data public without those payments? That is a matter of opinion. If I invest my own time and energy, without any public assistance, then those results are proprietary and release is a matter of personal philosophy.
Its been pointed out that some of these grants appear to only collect that data on concepts that have, already, obvious results. It reminds me of Galileo…..he insisted that the sun was the center of our solar system, while to everyone else it was obvious that the earth was the center. What sometimes seems apparent isn’t always so.
Releasing data from well-planned studies adds to the storehouse of common knowledge and although some of those studies may seem foolish to some of us the results may still apply to further investigations that do have meaning.
If the issue is should the federal government be funding these, then that’s a personal opinion and no amount of argument is going to sway someone on the other pole.

[JBG]

it's well documented that ahb (from kerrs own stock in brazil) was imported and distributed to us queenbreeders rather freely in the 50s.
deknow

A unique historical rendering of AHBs spread in South and North America. Care to offer the cite?

[deknow]

A unique historical rendering of AHBs spread in South and North America. Care to offer the cite?

well, i have some documents here, but you could start with a mainstream source.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Beekeeping
edited by Roger Morse and Ted Hooper

p230
"it is known that sperm from africanized bees was introduced into the united states and used to inseminate local queens in the late 1960's, without apparent adverse effect, and it is likely that queens were earlier introduced from africa into north america, again without problems."

[JBG]

iit is likely that queens were earlier introduced from africa into north america, again without problems."

So you maintain that testing for AHBs is not needed because they are indistinguishable from the result of these introductions which contaminated all of North America?

[deknow]

...i think you would find a lot of "standard stock"...the foundation of a lot of businesses, would test africanized if you tested it...which is whey bees are not routinely dna tested. sometimes cell size is used, sometimes variations in the wing veins. both of these tests are innaccurate (at best), and even dna tests for africanization don't seem to match from lab to lab.

deknow

[JBG]

So you think it is a waste of time to test for AHB in North America because it is not possible to distinguish them from our standard EHB stock?

[deknow]

yes. i don't think there is a such thing as "our ehb stock".

deknow

[JBG]

I am looking at a really interesting study out of Buenos Aires province where they address this. I don't know how to post .pdfs here but is from IBRA 2007
I found it interesting they can id haplotypes to the geographic origins of Iberia and North Africa for example. I don't know if any similar study has been done for Tx or Ga. Probably not. I realize this is way off thread but bear with me.....

http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/20080611_115

Which seems to indicate a more pure European stock preserved in BA Argentina than in the US perhaps. At least they did the research there. Shows how some other big Ag countries value Apiary resch.

[deknow]

Shows how some other big Ag countries value Apiary resch.

you do realize that the reason ahb was brought to brazil and the u.s. (by their respective goverments) was ag research?...to improve honey production. you do realize this was actually successful (especially in brazil).

do you realize the political (non-beekeeping related) issues wrt to dr kerr?
http://www.badbeekeeping.com/kerr.htm

deknow

[deknow]

Grants allow payment for planned, organized and collected data to be placed in the public domain. Do we have a moral obligation to make that data public without those payments? That is a matter of opinion. If I invest my own time and energy, without any public assistance, then those results are proprietary and release is a matter of personal philosophy.

in theory, i agree 100%. historically, however, beekeepers (pros and hobbyists alike) _have shared_ their results rather freely. not only that, but the publicly funded research has returned very little (if any) practical results. none that anyone has bothered to name. the introduction of ahb genetics may well be the biggest success of such funding.

so, do we justify such things based on theory, or the practical result?

Its been pointed out that some of these grants appear to only collect that data on concepts that have, already, obvious results.

yes, of course. common knowledge is often wrong, but funding people in business to research the products they are selling (overwintered nucs and resistant queens as examples) is hardly the objective perspective needed.

deknow

[deknow]

Deknow,

If you had access to grant money, what would you do with it?

i'd like to add to this.

over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of discussion of imidacloprid, and its effect on the bees.

i know 2 people (both from different parts of europe) who have told me that their bees died from imidacloprid poisoning. when i asked about lab results, they had not had them tested..expensive, and frowned upon by the authorities.

i'd like to get a fund together to pay for tests of such claims. if imidacloprid is a widespread problem for bees, we should figure it out sooner rather than later. if these claims are accurate, it should be easy to start putting together a world map with pushpins everywhere there is a confirmed kill. this would be data rather than assumption.

i don't know. part of me suspects that the reluctance to have these hives tested might be that the beekeeper is using something they don't want known. it also might simply be the political climate. either way, if we could supply a shipping container for the samples, paid postage to the nearest lab, and pay the lab directly, we could start to collect real data, and have a real idea if this is of concern in realworld situations or not.

deknow

[JBG]

you do realize that the reason ahb was brought to brazil and the u.s. (by their respective goverments) was ag research?...to improve honey production. you do realize this was actually successful (especially in brazil).

deknow

If you read my posts you will see that I do beekeeping with AHBs in Brazil at my fazenda in Teresopolis, RJ.

So AHB is now in the US because of US ag research?

[deknow]

...they were here decades before they "marched north".

deknow

[JBG]

...they were here decades before they "marched north".

deknow

AHBs were in the US decades before they marched north. OK, how about Central America and Mexico, were they there too?